Social Justice - A Conversation

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.

Unknown Speaker 0:07
Hi, I'm Lana weatherald. I'm a third year law student. Welcome to social justice, social

Unknown Speaker 0:11
justice to conversation conversation.

Unknown Speaker 0:13
Good evening, everybody and happy Thursday. So we want to begin with a story tonight. Well, a horrifying story out of Las Vegas are where we come and record the show out of obviously, many of you may know that there was a fatal stabbing, six people were stabbed total. And I believe there were two fatalities in front of the wind casino earlier this week. So it was to show girls that ultimately were the initial victims. And then there were more victims as the sort of the scene unfolded and the perpetrator in 2018, was charged with a felony domestic abuse. It's stemming out of some behavior in Los Angeles, and that case was dismissed. So you kind of wonder, you know, there's two, there's two conversations to be had here. There's a conversation Well, hey, this guy that committed this heinous and awful crime and is one step away from being a serial killer at this point, was allowed to walk right and should have been sitting in jail if not prison, and I don't, you know, it's hard to grapple with our justice system, failing that miserably. And now, you know, people have lost their lives because of the failure of our justice system to properly adjudicate what was going on with that guy. I do think that's a fair conversation to have. And then it brings up criminal justice reform. It brings up conversations about immigration in this country. And you know, I don't think that's the fairest conversation to have. Wynn Resorts. For those of you that don't know, massive, massive Corporation brings in a ton of money. In fact, three point I think, $6 billion last year, Caesars and MGM. They're even higher, around 9.6, and I believe $9.5 billion in revenue last year, respectively. So there needs to be in my opinion. And we'll have we'll have Professor Stanton weigh in here some culpability on behalf of these massive, massive conglomerations and corporations, right, so the Vegas showgirl is a staple of the Vegas community. And granted, they are not employed by the Wynn and I don't want to act like they weren't an employee by when Caesars MGM, these are private, you know, third party companies that employ the showgirls. But at the end of the day, the fact that their response time to these ladies was so short, the fact that there were not security if not police officers nearby or at least willing to respond within one to two minutes given given the size, given the amount of traffic that's on the Strip. This is nothing short of ridiculous that we can't hold multibillion dollar corporations responsible for our safety, when we're the ones bringing in all this revenue. And then those poor showgirls are just trying to add atmosphere and bring spirit to the strip and represent what Vegas is all about. Now they lose their lives. Right. So you know, on one side, there is the conversation about what are we doing with immigration? What are we doing with criminal justice reform? But I think we need to look at the other side of the coin. And that's it. These girls were murdered in front of a wind Casino. And there was no security, no cops, no any nothing. There was nothing there to protect those girls. And I think, yeah, just some level of culpability there as necessary.

Unknown Speaker 3:11
Yes, it's interesting, you know, that in many ways. We have an attitude in the city, that Vegas is sort of removed from the rest of the world, that none of these atrocities can occur here because this is a land of pleasure and, and entertainment and everything like that. But I think that this is a is a concern for people who would want to come here are our city basically, although it's a regular city, like every other city, it's a unique city, because so much of its income, and so much of its popularity comes from people who visit us. And we we of course want to create the feeling that when people come here, they're going to be safe. And in this case, it appears that that that really did not happen. The response time for apprehending this man was quite extended. So I think it's something that you know, the city fathers should be looking at, in cooperation with the casino operators as to what can be done to make it to make the stripper safer place. I think there has been a change on the strip and the years that I've been here as to basically, if you want to use the word rowdiness, or misbehavior, whatever words you want to choose from a lot of the people that are that are out there. And you'll see you'll see it especially like on a Friday night or an on a Saturday night. Where basically the police really have their hands full trying to keep water which you know, obviously, is sun Doing that is a concern to all of us because we, a person only needs one bad experience in this place not to come back

Unknown Speaker 5:07
and to tell all their friends as a corollary. Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 5:11
So I think there's something that I think there's something definitely that can be done about it. You know,

Unknown Speaker 5:18
but I hear you make a great point. I think having the conversation that hey, there is danger on the strip, and we do need to address this and hate crime has gone up. And we are seeing people that are afraid to come here, that that's not a conversation I think anybody wants to have and to even admit that there is a problem would then create more fear for for people you know, you don't, you'd never want to affect the bottom line. At the end of the day, we don't ever want to affect the bottom line and to make tourists it puts tourists in fear of coming. It's a no go it's a non starter. And then we don't get to address the problems when there is actual crime going on on the strip. And you know, I'm on the strip all the time. And I can attest to the things that are being said here is it's it's, it's different. And even in the last maybe year or two, I've seen it become so much worse, where the things I see are the rise to nearly a GTA level, a Grand Theft Auto Level thing. I mean, on exaggeratedly, they are very scary things that I see on the strip. So yeah,

Unknown Speaker 6:09
well, you know, it's interesting as, as an attorney, and someone who, you know, worked in the justice system for a number of years. What What fascinates me and frightens me, is how a lot of the crime not just in our city, but in the country is random, almost senseless crime. It's not crime, where I want to steal money from somebody, it's not crime, where I'm trying to take somebody's clean crimes of passion anymore. Oh, it's just like the crime where there's like, really no explanation for it. And it's sort of kicks into, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, and converse with Lana about is the gun violence that we have in our country. And I see a parallel, which I'll make later about the parallel between gun violence and voting. In the recent statistics show and alarming and alarming rate rise in gun deaths in our country, the it's the highest it's been the figures from 2021, with the highest it's been in 30 years, we have basically a huge rise in homicide by gun, we have a huge rise in suicide by gun, we have a huge rise, actually, the number one cause of deaths and adults between 25 and 44. We have the statistic of black Americans being 13 times more likely to be killed by death by gun. And much like much like voting rights. There's a parallel when we had the election in 2020, where we had to deal with COVID and all the obstacles to voting, we managed to get an enormous amount of people to vote, well over 170 million people. Now, I think I've mentioned this before, but if I haven't, why didn't Why would a normal response to that increase in voting B? Boy, this is great. We've got all these people following. Let's see how we can work to get even more people to vote to get up to 75 80%, maybe 90% In our country, but the reaction, the reaction was the complete opposite corrective reaction. Let's stop voting. Now. We see what I was an obvious gun violence problem. It's not a debatable issue that we have a problem of gun proper gun crime. But But what's interesting is the reaction from not just not just politicians, but people, law enforcement people, particularly in the state of New York, where a lot of the upstate sheriffs don't want to enforce the ban on concealed weapons in certain parts of the state. And one of the one of the sheriffs, I guess, was in Madison County said that guns are what made America great. Guns are now and made America great. It is there is nothing great about people being able to get going, No, maybe going back to the olden days, when we were fighting the British in the Revolutionary War. It was a great thing, but not not to have what you have today. And that issue also ties into a lot of the court decisions that we've been having, where a lot of the what I consider a sensible gun laws are being thrown out. For example. The law having to do was people creating their own ghost guns, creating unregistered guns, and there was a law in the books and one of the states to make that a felony of the law was thrown out. We had another situation involving basically really what were underage. For adults, being able to get access to guns, high powered guns, and there was a statute against that that was thrown out. We had a situation where, in a lot of the lot of the not just rural communities, but even in the cities, gun violence has come almost to be a part of life. There doesn't seem to be any shock or outrage anymore about it. And it's so interesting to contrast the United States with Japan, when the Prime Minister Robbie was killed, like this, like the National shock of the death of one man. And we have

Unknown Speaker 10:39
met every night in every city, there is a new report of gun violence in some way, shape or form. Yeah, yeah. It's quite amazing. And we've become numb to it. Right? We see those things. And it's much like you've just stated in Japan, it was a horror, right? Well, couldn't believe something like that could possibly it's every night and we expect it. In fact, we're shocked if the news is rosy. Yeah, no,

Unknown Speaker 10:58
that's That's very true. I think I think that there hasn't been as much. And I say this carefully. But I think accurately, I don't think that the national media in our country, whether it's Fox News, whether it's CNN, whether it's an MSNBC, have used the pulpit that they have to really try to push for effective, safe gun control legislation that I think could pass in a unified Congress,

Unknown Speaker 11:35
because there are common sense gun laws, and there are ways to pass things that everybody I don't think many people believe 19 and 20 year olds should be out carrying guns. I believe that 21 is a common sense gun law, I believe background, but these are things that at now have become so muddled in things that you believe are not common sense anymore, and it's what are we doing?

Unknown Speaker 11:53
Yeah, well, I think I think a lot of it is, I think a lot of it is that the gun control issue, trying to have gun control has become demonized. I don't think it has been really, what I think we need to do is we need to start at a foundation of what we can agree with. In other words, we have to get over the mythology that we're trying to take everybody's guns, right,

Unknown Speaker 12:17
we're not coming out of your uncle's, we're not coming for your uncle's double barrel shotgun he uses to hunt deer. And I mean, that's not what what's, you know, but that's where the narrative has changed. They're trying to take away your culture, they're trying to take away America's past, we love going to the shooting range, we love hunting. That's not the idea here. The idea here is to prevent mass murderers on the scale of which we saw in Las Vegas, the scale of which we saw newval day this guy, I mean, the list goes on and on. I could sit here and list examples of mass shootings that should have been prevented until I'm blue in the face. So I don't write I just don't get why the conversation has to become so muddled. The reality is we have guns that should not be publicly available, especially for 19 and 20. year olds, I mean, hey,

Unknown Speaker 12:58
yeah, well, I think I think this is the way I would try to frame it. I would set try to frame it in this way. You have you need a gun to protect your home. I can, I can completely identify with that.

Unknown Speaker 13:15
Or you could get a you know, German Shepherd.

Unknown Speaker 13:19
True, well could be a little noisier by the sea, you could do that. You could, you could have a gun. If you worked in a job where you were in a high crime area and you had to deliver money or different things that you did, I can see that I can see the hunting if you want to go out and hunt. That's an American tradition. There's no point is no objection. But I am still waiting for someone to tell me. And this is the question that I think needs to be asked. What is the social or any other kind of benefit from a person having an assault weapon? What possible purpose? Do they need an assault weapon for? What can it be used for? Except killing a lot of people in a very short,

Unknown Speaker 14:05
right? What scenario are these people facing in everyday life where they would need an automatic assault weapon? You're not that important, buddy. I'm sorry, nobody's coming after you in droves. The drones aren't coming down to get you the war is not coming to your door. You don't need an AR

Unknown Speaker 14:19
what's what's fascinating in the state of Texas is that you can be the you can be the same age as the the young man who killed all the children in the school. And you're able at the age of 18 to get an assault weapon. But you have to wait until you're 21 to get a handgun.

Unknown Speaker 14:40
Yeah, in the state of Florida. God forbid you want a pack of cigarettes, but go ahead and get your AR

Unknown Speaker 14:44
Yeah. And I think I think it's I think it's a cultural thing. And I think it's a cultural thing that has lost a lot of its validity. A lot of the gun laws that were passed a lot of the things that were were are taken for granted. We're in a different time in America, when we had, you know, a militia when we were fighting the brightest when, when there were all kinds of things. Well, we didn't were up until midway in the in the 19th century, we really didn't have police forces, people needed to protect themselves. But when you see what's happened in the past 510 15 years, we need to we need to address it, we need to have a consensus, which I think we could find, which I think we can find. And I think that our avoidance to do so is going to just, it's going to get worse, this is not going to get better, it's going to get worse. You know, so so so that's the gun issue. And then we can we can also get into what I and Lana have discussed. The rise and I call it racial politics, where we're starting to see in a lot of the races now, for the Senate and for the governorships across the country that race, racial animus and racial invective is coming back. We saw it in the state of Alabama with Tommy Tuberville. And the times over what used to coach Auburn. And basically he somehow in his, in his speech, actually out here in Nevada, who was a speech in nagging, Medwin, Nevada, he was talking about reparations, I don't know how he got into reparations, but I realize it's a it's a lightning bolt for a lot of people. But apparently, he says when he says that the people who want reparations, they want them because they think the people who to crime erode that. So basically, what he's basically saying is, all the black people are criminals, they're the only ones that are committing these crimes. So that's one example. Then you have the gentleman in the state of Pennsylvania, who's running for governor, and he's been critiquing the, his opponent, who's Jewish, about the fact that the Jewish candidate for governor sends his children to a Jewish school. Well, okay, then there are Christian politicians and Christian and Christian leaders, who send their children to have angelical schools, their Catholic politicians who send their children to Catholic schools. So you know, I don't see what the problem is. But he then he says to his audience, he says, Well, he says, that's the, he's doing this to show disdain for us, showing disdain for anybody. What he's doing basically is he wants his children to be familiar with Jewish culture and Jewish traditions. Just like a political person, evangelical person would want the same for their child, or a Catholic child was a Catholic parent who wants to save for their child. I mean, as far as sending people to elite schools. Justice Gorsuch and justice Cavanaugh went to elite schools, they went to the same elite school. So there was there's no criticism of that. But what's interesting is that there's an intolerance. There's an intolerance of people who have a different opinion than they do. And that's what we're really supposed to be fighting against.

Unknown Speaker 18:28
Right. And this intolerance is not only shocking, but this intolerance unfortunately sells and it's shocking nature. So then these are the people ultimately the good platformed and it's not the races that really matter are the races that should be tight, or the races between two candidates that actually know what the heck they're doing. It's these you know, before races it's these these you know, you don't want to use the term idiots these might end up being our elected officials, but ultimately, idiots and we their vitriol and their garbage that sells that's what the newsroom, I mean, and then it just it spirals from there because then they're incentives for them to continue to report on that person. And I don't see much like we mentioned with the gun control a way out unless there's drastic changes to how we report on politicians and how we talk about the things they say.

Unknown Speaker 19:19
Well, I think a lot of it is what the National Party what the what the party for the RNC is willing to tolerate. In other words, if they if you can get somebody to go out there and they can say anti semitic things or anti black things or anti Hispanic things, or anti Korean things, then they're getting a signal to to see that it's acceptable. But then what what troubles me though, beyond people who who are running for office and who are running on a platform of let's just say racial discord. The Los Angeles City Council, that whole issue with the Los Angeles City Council, we have people on tape, one of whom was one of whom was on the city council. The other gentleman was in charge of one of the largest labor unions. And two others who were there who were, I guess, along for the ride, basically, you know, using anti anti black, anti, anti Asian, you know, epithets and rhetoric when you're doing when you're doing a city council meeting. I mean, this is like a certain standard that should be adhered to. And this is where I think we're going off the track here. There's a certain standard of behavior, there's a certain standard, the way you're going to conduct yourself is hopefully for everybody. But certainly for a public official for certainly for somebody who, you know, is elected by the people. And I'm not saying I'm not saying that, you know, people don't hide their prejudices, because some people hide their prejudices very well, right. But so much will be blatantly, openly saying these things is like, completely unacceptable. And I think that that, unfortunately, there's not enough focus on it, that people think it becomes normalized, right? It

Unknown Speaker 21:35
goes back to the media, it goes back to the media's refusal, or we got to stay on a, you know, objective and non biased and we know, when our elected officials are espousing racist epithets, like you said, there is no reason that we need to remain objective, or we need to remain non biased. It is our responsibility as people as journalists, as you know, even us as people sitting here talking on the radio to call this stuff out. I mean, what are we doing? We're we're complicit in racism? Oh, wow.

Unknown Speaker 22:03
Yeah. Well, I think I think a lot of it, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that through the 2016 campaign, and of course, to the 2020 campaign, it became normalized. And there was no there was no sanction for it, whether it was whether it was a speaking you have women, whether it was speaking you have minorities, whether it was speaking guild of judges, however, whoever you want to talk about. And I think it hit a chord with a lot of people who espouse those views, right? I think there's a lot of people who are, have a deep racial animus against against people who don't look like they are. And I think that's what, that's a lot of what we're dealing with. Now, how you change that, right? Is is the question I believe, one of the things I believe I believe in education, you know, we're having we have all this talk now about canceled culture and everything like that. I believe education is one of the most important things, because a lot of young people are not aware of a lot of things that have happened in our history of our country. And the idea, the idea of these these courses in the idea of this education is not is not to make anybody feel bad. It's not to make anybody feel ashamed. It's not to blame children, or in many cases, even their parents or even grandparents, who weren't even here when things happened. But it is it is something to it is something to remind people of the dangers of things like that. I mean, that's, you know, Holocaust studies, what is it about? It's about trying to not blame the little kid in Germany for what happened, but it is to show them how a society when went off the tracks, and how people follow, you know, a person was insane, to commit all these acts. And so by learning from history, you really understand to repeat exactly, exactly right, exactly. Right. So you know, another thing we could talk about, of course, is an I O will throw us in at the end, and hopefully in the near future, we'll do a program on, you know, women in the justice system. And all in all its vagaries idiocies and lack of lack of attention. Harvey Weinstein and relatively soon is going to go in for on trial in Los Angeles, and another case, regarding a sexual accused of sexual misdeeds, and it's really interesting to see how there's two classes of war in this country. There's, there's a class of law for people, there's a standard of law for people who have privilege. And then there's a standard of law for not just people of color, pretty much everybody else. Yeah, correct. So that, you know, he has this high power team. And basically, you know, he's a convicted felon, the man, I don't think there's any argument about that, right. But the judge says, Yeah, you can dress up in a suit, we can give you some false teeth. And then she, the judge also says, You know what we can limit the the number of people who were in similar situations like the women who are accusing in this trial, the plaintiffs in this trial, the accusers in this trial, and would be overly prejudicial. And that was that was actually the same argument that was used in Bo Cosby case. But the happy fact is that the circumstances in all these cases are pretty much the same, that it was the same modus operandi that the person used. So to me, that's a highly relevant fact that the jury should be aware of. But as I say, the law the law is not the law is not on the side of women, particularly when they accuse men, particularly men of power of sexual abuse. We

Unknown Speaker 26:11
talked about it in the last show, I mean, even if there was is seemingly the repercussions that are justified in cases like this, there still not really enough benefit for the average woman to go ahead and report her claims. We, I mean, we talked about it at length. So I don't want to belabor the point. But at the end of the day, a lot of these women are stuck between a rock and a hard place between do I want to become a blacklisted member of Hollywood no longer get the gigs I worked my whole life for or do I just want to keep my flippin mouth shut? You know, I don't think they're presented with a choice that is comfortable at at any step. So I, again, wish we could present solutions are ready and effective solutions for these problems. But I don't see them getting better. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 26:53
no, it it has become it has become a nightmare for any woman, correct? Oh, whether it was Anita Hill, or Dr. Blasi Ford or, you know, even atrocities that were far worse than that. So actually appear publicly.

Unknown Speaker 27:09
I mean, good God, it took him 20 years to prosecute our Kelly, look at that. I mean, it's just this is nothing. And we all knew that was going on. And we had plenty of people knew what Weinstein was, I mean, hundreds, I would venture to guess knew what he was, we know these things are going on. It's just we don't you know, we don't care. Nor do we want to bring the darkness to light so to

Unknown Speaker 27:29
speak, I think there's a lack of a lack of belief in women. That's almost hardwired in people's brain, that when a woman comes forward, she's gotta be making it up, right? I don't I don't know what else to say. Now, there

Unknown Speaker 27:46
really isn't anything else to say, unfortunately. So

Unknown Speaker 27:49
as my brother used to say, it's like beating a dead horse. You know, you can't, you can you can, you can appeal to people's minds. But ultimately, you have to appeal to their hearts.

Unknown Speaker 28:00
Well, and it's tough. If you're at the point where you have a woman very clearly victimized very clearly, you know, not very clearly telling you the truth, and you still can't bring it in your heart to believe that she has suffered these atrocities. I don't know if there's any fixing that. I don't know if you could change a person like that in their mindset, or in their ways I don't. And I don't believe it'd be worth the effort of women to try and change people's minds like that, because they're, I don't think they're gonna end up on the winning side of that. sad as it may be. Yeah, I think

Unknown Speaker 28:28
you're right. I think you're right, unfortunately, you know, but we do this show in the hope that we will awaken people and that people will, people have good intentions, will come forward to do their duty as citizens and human beings in situations where they can do good and can help and can speak is the most important thing is to speak out. That's the most essential thing for all of us to do. We can't always move the world. But we can, in little ways, push the globe a little bit toward a better society, a better world for all of us, hopefully.

Unknown Speaker 29:08
Yeah. And on that note, if you would like to be a part of this conversation, or send in a question, or at least a topic idea that you would like to hear me and Professor Stanton discuss, feel free to send us an email. So I'll give you guys the email addresses one more time for us. That is my email address, w e t h e l one, the number one@unlv.nevada.edu. And then for Professor Stanton, it's going to be charles.stanton@nevada.edu. And we would appreciate any comments, any questions, concerns, anything you would like us to discuss? We're open for feedback. And we thank you again for listening. Happy Thursday. Thanks for tuning into social justice a conversation. Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at weather one. That's w e t h e l one@nevada.unlv.edu. or to contact Professor Charles Stanton contact him at CHA R L E S That's Charles dot Stanton s t a n t o n@unlv.edu

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